Many conventional and modified vehicles have elevated chassis. An example of such a vehicle are "off-road" four wheel drive vehicles in which the chassis and body are elevated substantially for ground clearance purposes. Such vehicles, and others having high chassis, are difficult to climb into.
As a solution to the access problem, fixed steps have been mounted to the vehicle body or chassis to provide lower step access to the vehicle passenger compartment. Provision of such fixed steps effectively lowers the elevation of the vehicle and therefore defeats the purpose in maximizing ground clearance.
It is known to provide folding steps, particularly for recreational vehicles. Such steps are typically rigid and are mounted to the recreational vehicle adjacent to a door. The steps will fold on a horizontal axis from an elevated storage position adjacent the door, to a lowered operative position. It is frequent that the steps fold upward into the swing path of the door in the inoperative, storage position. While this arrangement functions well to selectively alter the access elevation, the step apparatus is bulky and unsightly. This is especially true if such step configurations are to be used for primary occupant access doors in vehicles, such as four-wheel drive trucks, etc.
A need has therefore remained to provide a folding form of access step that will not effectively lower the working elevation of a vehicle, while functioning to provide easy access to the elevated vehicle. It is also desirable to obtain some form of folding access step arrangement that does not require special manipulations by the user to move between lowered, operative positions, and elevated, storage positions.
The present fold-down step accomplishes the above objectives by providing a step arrangement that is readily foldable from an elevated, storage position in which the step maintains a relatively compact profile under the vehicle and thereby does not interfere or effectively lower the ground clearance for the vehicle. The present fold-down step is also operative to move into a outwardly projecting, downward operative position providing easy foot access to support a user on entrance or egress to or from the adjacent vehicle. The present fold-down step also includes features that enable automatic operation of the fold-down step to move between the operative and inoperative positions responsive to opening and closing of the vehicle door. Preferred forms of the invention also provide convertibility so that configurations for driver and non-driver sides of the vehicle can easily be accommodated.